How we start a project

We have been a Vancouver studio since 2015. Most projects still start the same way: a short note to admin@sycgeeks.ca, not a forty-page RFP. Write what you sell, who has to finish a task on the site, and the date that actually matters. A Burnaby salon that needs online booking before a long weekend is a project. A mood board with no city, no currency, and no deadline is not. If you already pay for Square, Shopify, or a warehouse tool, name it in the first message.

We would rather inherit a system that already takes Canadian cards than invent a second checkout you will abandon in March. Square at the chair and a new “modern” cart that does not talk to it is how a Saturday double-sells a colour appointment. Name the processor, the POS, the booking tool, and the person who can approve copy. If you do not know those names yet, say so. Guessing is slower than an honest blank.

You do not need an account to write. You do not need a Square booking to write. If you would rather talk first, book a slot on Pacific time with no account required. Bring the same facts you would put in the email. We will not spend the hour asking what the company does while you flip through a pitch deck. The first note, or the first booked hour, should already name the conversion.

A messy brief is fine. An invisible one is not. “We need a website” tells us nothing we can price in CAD. “We cut hair on Hastings, we take Square, we need clients to book Thursday evenings in English and French before November” is enough to start discovery. Send screenshots if the current site is the problem. Send the price list if the current site lies about prices. We can tidy a pile. We cannot invent a business you have not described.

Discovery is a conversation, not a workshop series. We work Pacific time from Vancouver. Toronto, Montreal, and Halifax clients are welcome; the overlap is the constraint. If you can only meet at 9 a.m. Atlantic, say so before we hold a slot. We will not pretend a 6 a.m. studio start is a normal week. Book through Square, or write the times you can actually attend. The calendar is the product, not a suggestion.

We look for the one conversion that pays for the work: a booking, a checkout, a lead form, an appointment. Everything else is supporting material. A Montreal retailer that needs CAD checkout and French receipts has a conversion. A “rebrand plus blog plus app plus marketplace” is four projects wearing a trench coat. If two conversions fight each other — book a consult and buy a product on the same first screen — we pick one for launch. The other waits for an add-on.

We ask who approves. One person who can say yes to copy, prices, and a launch week is worth more than a committee that meets after the market. If legal or a professional college must read the pages, name that clock in discovery. Health claims, alcohol, and reserved titles change the calendar more than the framework we use. We would rather design for those rules in week one than retrofit in week nine.

You receive a scoped quote in Canadian dollars: what we will ship, what we will not, and how care works after launch. The catalog and the invoice are CAD. GST in British Columbia and HST in Ontario are not decoration; they belong on the quote if the work is taxable. We do not start production on a handshake and a Figma file. If the brief is still moving — prices unpublished, languages undecided, processor unsigned — we say so and wait. Silent scope is how trust dies.

The quote names the conversion, the languages on day one, and the systems we will connect. English, French, or both is not a toggle. Bilingual work changes information architecture, legal copy, button widths, and how we test checkout. If French must be correct on launch day for a Quebec audience, that is in the number. If French can wait for a later add-on, that is also in the number. We will not pretend a machine dump is a second site.

Care is written on the same page. Monthly care is $450 CAD. Yearly care is $4,500 CAD — two months included. Both cover hosting watch, small copy and dependency updates, one reserved studio hour, and a note in your dashboard of what changed. Post-launch add-ons are about 25 percent off if the account has care. We will not hide that math in a later email. You should see the line between a reserved hour and a new CAD quote before you approve.

We refuse to quote a fantasy timeline. A store with Square, GST, and French receipts is not a two-week theme swap. A marketing site with copy you already have can move in six to ten weeks. Content you do not have will not appear because we are optimistic. If you need a date for a market, a fiscal year, or a lease, write it. We would rather decline the date than miss it after you have printed the flyer.

We will not start production without a written CAD number you approved. We will not take a “start now, invoice later” handshake for a checkout that moves money. We will not build a second inventory next to Square POS because a theme demo looked cleaner. We will not ship stock photographs of smiling strangers. If you do not have real photos of the room, the product, or the work, we use illustration. A Burnaby salon does not need a stock handshake. It needs the chair, the hours, and the book button.

We will not hide French behind a flag icon and call the site bilingual. We will not collect personal information we will not use. PIPEDA is about purpose; the privacy page has to say why a field exists. We will not drop an analytics script because a template shipped with one. We will not fake Apple Pay in a browser that cannot run it. We will not make crypto the only way to pay a Canadian retailer. Card, Interac e-Transfer, and the processor you already have come first.

We will not treat WCAG as a later package. Contrast, labels, keyboard paths, and real alt text are launch work for a public Canadian site. We will not quote a store that cannot explain GST in BC versus HST if you sell into Ontario. Tax is the product. The theme is decoration. If you are not ready to decide those things, we wait. Waiting is cheaper than rebuilding checkout in January.

Once you approve, we open a project in your dashboard, set the workflow, and book the first working session. You sign in with email or a wallet (a signed message, not a password). The project has a status — intake, active, review, paused, launched — a progress bar, and a notes field. You will always know the current step. That is the whole point of starting calmly. We do not run the job in a forgotten email thread.

Use the notes for decisions. “Waiting on product photos from the Montreal warehouse” is useful. “Looks good!!” is not. The next person at your company should be able to pick up the file on a Tuesday. Appointments and purchases sit beside the project. If you need a new engagement, open checkout or book time. Do not bury a second brief inside the first project’s notes. That is how a colour-and-cut site quietly becomes an app.

Payments for the quote go through Square, Stripe, PayPal, Apple Pay, Interac e-Transfer, or an optional ETH wallet if we quoted that rail. The number you approve is the number you pay. Processors still take their Canadian fee. We do not hide that fee in a USD sticker. If scope changes, we write a new number on the same project. Care members pay about 25 percent less on published add-ons. You will see the receipt next to the workflow, not only in inbox search.

The first working session starts from the quote. We do not re-open “what if we also built an app.” We confirm the conversion, the pages, the languages, and the systems. If you are a salon, we walk the booking path on a phone. If you are a retailer, we walk a CAD cart and the tax line. If something in the quote is wrong, we stop and rewrite the number. We do not quietly add weeks because the session felt friendly.

Bring the brand files you trust, the current URL, and login to the tools we must touch. Do not send a drive of every photo you have ever taken. Send the six images you would actually put on the homepage. We will not scrape a Facebook page and call it a brand system. If you have no photos, say so; illustration is part of how this studio ships. Students on your side, if any, finish orientation before they log hours against the project.

We set the workflow steps you will see: structure, design, build, content, bilingual review, launch. You can open the dashboard mid-week and know which step is current. If a week slips because legal has the privacy page, we write that in the notes. Silent calendars are how projects rot. If production is down after launch, that is a weekday phone call to +1 (672) 200-7924, not a new discovery session.

Launch is a status change, not a goodbye. The project stays in the account as launched. Defects in the support window are care. A second language you did not buy, a new collection, or a checkout change is a published add-on on the same record. We reopen that workflow. We do not ask you to explain the company to a stranger in a new thread. That is why we start with a file, not a chat.

Say in the first week whether English, French, or both must be correct on day one. A federal audience and a Quebec storefront are not the same as a Vancouver studio that will add French later. We plan URLs, legal copy, and checkout labels together. A button that fits “Book” may not fit “Prendre rendez-vous.” That is a design problem, not a translation afterthought. Forms, receipts, and error messages are part of the language work.

Tax belongs in intake. If you sell from BC into Ontario, GST and HST are different lines, not a single “tax” toggle copied from a US theme. If you only serve Vancouver, say so. If you ship Canada-wide, say so. We will not pick a theme and then discover you need provincial rates. The processor — Square, Stripe, PayPal — must settle in CAD. Apple Pay sits on top of a configured processor. Interac e-Transfer is a Canadian rail we can name on the quote. Optional ETH is never the only rail.

Privacy and accessibility start with the form, not a footer link. Collect only what you will use. Say why on the privacy page. Chat and analytics are still personal information. Keyboard paths and contrast are launch work. If your college or insurer has rules, attach them to the brief. We build for those rules. We do not paste a US checklist onto a Canadian store and call it done.

Write admin@sycgeeks.ca when you have a brief we can price: conversion, deadline, systems. That is the fastest path to a CAD quote. Book a Square appointment when you want to talk before you write. Call +1 (672) 200-7924 on a weekday if production is down, a launch is today, or a student cannot get into the dashboard. That line is for heat. It is not a substitute for a brief. We will not quote a store over the phone from a street address and a vibe.

Students finish orientation before the hour log will save. Merchants see projects, workflows, purchases, and appointments. Clients who only need a quote can stay on email until they approve. Wallet login and email login both land in the matching dashboard. Pick the role before you connect a wallet. Existing wallets keep the role they already have. None of that replaces the first facts: what you sell, who must finish a task, and when.

Starting calmly is not slow. It is how a Vancouver studio invoices in CAD, ships English and French, and still answers a weekday emergency line. Send the conversion. Send the deadline. Send the systems you already pay for. We will write the quote before anyone opens a production branch. That is how we have started work since 2015, and it is still the only start we will sell you.